Marie Murphy Chronicles

1 May 2108

Marie Murphy Chronicles

1 May 2108

Down the Stretch They Go! ...Wait...Nevermind, We Still Have Six Weeks Left of School.

Science Olympiad Completes Season With 3rd Place State Finish!

The Marie Murphy Science Olympiad team completed their season with a third place finish at the Illinois State Tournament in Champaign on April 21! The team's strong performance was highlighted with with fourteen Marie Murphy teams finishing in the top five in the state for their given events. This included four second place finishes and five state champion teams! State championship events for the Science Vikings included: Crime Busters, Optics, Road Scholar, Rocks & Minerals, and Towers.

Congratulations to the Science Olympiad team on fantastic season! Special thanks to all of our parent coaches and volunteers. And extra special thanks to Team Coaches Jim Gravagna, Peter Ogden, Darren Persino and Shannon Wright for all their hard work during the longest season of any competitive team at Marie Murphy!

Annual Spring Play a Bloody Good Time!

What happens when you take the premise of Shakespeare's classic King Lear, add the plot twists and turns of Game of Thrones, and incorporate Disney princesses as main characters? You get the hilarious Game of Tiaras, Marie Murphy's Spring Play!

With a cast of nearly 20 actors, various production crew members, costume designers, and fight choreographers, the play was a challenging endeavor for theatre teacher Karah Janssen and student-director Margo Pagonis. But the dedication of all participants yielded a huge success! The day-time assembly performance for the students on April 26 and the evening performance on April 27 were well-received by enthusiastic audiences!

Congratulations to all our young actors and theater assistants for a fantastic production!

And the Winners Are...

Each year, Marie Murphy Art Teacher Kelly Sabatini highlights the best pieces of student artwork from the year by sponsoring a good-natured competition. Utilizing electronic voting, MM staff members vote on their favorite three art pieces at each grade level. Artwork is not labeled so voting is truly merit based. Winners are displayed on the video board in main hallway and highlighted in the critically-acclaimed "Marie Murphy Chronicles". See the winners and their outstanding pieces below!

Congratulations to all of our young artists and their outstanding work this year!

Marie Murphy Hosts French Foreign Exchange Students

7th and 8th grade French students at Marie Murphy had the opportunity to host a student from France in April. This program is a wonderful linguistic and cultural opportunity for students at Marie Murphy. This year the French guests went to a hockey game, visited museums in Chicago, cheered the Cubs at Wrigley, and they also faced their fear of heights at the Willis Tower!

In June, 7th and 8th grade Marie Murphy students have the opportunity travel to Strasbourg and stay with host families for about 10 days, visiting the area and attending the local French school to attend a few classes. They will then go to Paris for three days. While there, they will visit the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay, as well as explore the Sacré Coeur and the cathedral Notre Dame. And of course, no trip to Paris would be complete without a tour to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Mademoiselle Françoise Mishinger has organized this exchange for the past three years, along with the French teachers at Washburne and Sears.

Roots & Shoots Wages Green Wars!

For the first time this year, the Roots and Shoots Club spearheaded a school wide plastic film recycling contest sponsored by The Trex Company, the country’s largest manufacturer of wood-alternative decking and railing products. Schools across the country compete against other schools of similar size to win a bench made from Trex materials, and at Marie Murphy each grade competed to win a prize for the entire grade. As a school, Marie Murphy collected over 115 pounds of plastic bags and film, with 6th grade (43.75 pounds) edging out 8th grade (42 pounds) to win a pizza party at lunch. While the contest is over, plastic bags and film can still be recycled in the bin by the office or at your local grocery store.